About Jason Thibeault

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

Crashing the #FTBullies Hashtag

Like the bullies we are, we FtB bloggers (and our friends and readers) crashed a hashtag originally started by a few people who just absolutely hate that we talk about social justice so much and dare to moderate the comments sections on those posts. Hilarity ensued.

This is a snapshot of some of the funniest tweets from when I was participating yesterday. It is probably not representative of all the best tweets, so much as the ones that caught my eye (or that I said and therefore think are hilarious).

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About the author

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

That whole thing was a bag of fun (I’m @nezchan BTW) and had me staying up WAY later than planned. And in fact it looks like things are still going to some degree.

I was particularly amused by Hoggle, et al, still trying to take themselves seriously, and the guy who was seriously offended by someone offering a toast to Greg Laden. All the while drowning in in a sea of ridicule.

First, I’m annoyed as fuck that people are trivializing actual bullying by claiming that we’re it — because we post about social justice and moderate our spaces (or moderate via ridicule), when the vast majority of the people who agree are actively engaging in a real and targeted bullying campaign.

Second, we actually are mocking them en masse, by crashing the hashtag and posting about how terrible of people we all are.

Third, I think that second point is okay because we are our own targets, and we’re drowning out the trivialization of bullying by making shit up about how awful we are.

Well, I generally overthink things as well. And I thought about this, and I think I’ve come to a firm position on this.

It’s pretty simple. Bullying is punching down. Full stop. That is, going after people with less status or power or whatever. And that’s why it’s wrong.What’s going on here, is a firm case of at the very least punching to the side (which is fine), but more than likely is punching up. We’re punching against people who think that they’re better than other people for whatever reason.

(I’m not sure if I’d call what the other side is doing bullying either, per se, however it is very stalker/obsessive behavior, which is another kettle of fish)

As long as we’re punching up, it’s fine. Now, that doesn’t give us permission to do whatever. But that’s not because it’s bullying, but it’s because sometimes it can give the wrong impression of what you’re actually fighting for. (I.E. make it seem like you’re more extreme than you are)

So anyway. That’s my view, I think on the whole bullying thing. And yes, it’s very demeaning towards people who are the victims of ACTUAL bullying.

On the subject of bullying behaviour, there’s a certain mob mentality to it as well. It was telling to me that when I went through the comments on the whole Thunderf00t mess, you had many critics putting forth actual critiques, and on the other side you had the Usual Suspects who largely just wanted to toss around invective at PZ/Ophelia/Ed/Rebecca/FTB in general and didn’t really have much content other than “they’re awful people”. They weren’t there because of the issues, but because someone was sticking it to their crowd’s favourite targets and content be damned.

To be fair, there were some pro-FTB pile-on folks just there to say “TF is a poopyhead”, but really not that many.

First, I’m annoyed as fuck that people are trivializing actual bullying by claiming that we’re it — because we post about social justice and moderate our spaces (or moderate via ridicule), when the vast majority of the people who agree are actively engaging in a real and targeted bullying campaign.

Ever since I first say the “bully” accusations, I’ve been wondering if they have broken dictionaries. The irony has been mindblowing because most of the actual bullying behaviour I’ve seen has been coming from them. Hell, it’s been almost a year now and their campaign against Rebecca Watson shows no signs of abating.

That said, I thought #FTBullies would have run its course when I logged onto Twitter today. I’m very glad it hasn’t because I’m still having fun with it…

It’s pretty simple. Bullying is punching down. Full stop. That is, going after people with less status or power or whatever. And that’s why it’s wrong.What’s going on here, is a firm case of at the very least punching to the side (which is fine), but more than likely is punching up. We’re punching against people who think that they’re better than other people for whatever reason.

(I’m not sure if I’d call what the other side is doing bullying either, per se, however it is very stalker/obsessive behavior, which is another kettle of fish)

As long as we’re punching up, it’s fine. Now, that doesn’t give us permission to do whatever. But that’s not because it’s bullying, but it’s because sometimes it can give the wrong impression of what you’re actually fighting for. (I.E. make it seem like you’re more extreme than you are)

I agree with your sentiment, but if only it were that simple to define bullying. I have been subjected to sustained and planed bullying by an employee who was well versed in employment law and who managed to skirt just on the right side of avoiding any punishment other than a couple of warnings. Even the mediator employed to try and resolve issues said she had never seen anything quite like it, although she did say reverse bullying is not actually uncommon. In short a clever bully can actually use laws and systems designed to prevent bullying and discrimination as cover – for a time at least – by using fairness and due process against others.

“First, I’m annoyed as fuck that people are trivializing actual bullying by claiming that we’re it.” – Jason Thibeault

Oh, like how bloggers and commenters at Skepchick and FtB trivialize sexism and misogyny by using those terms to label anyone who dares disagree with the crowd? It’s real easy to convince yourself that you’re in the right if all your opponents are bigots, right? Just look at this very post, in which you misrepresent your opposition by claiming that they hate discussions of “social justice.”

[…] is quite a good example of this happening recently on Greta Christina’s Blog, and on the Lousy Canuck where they thought it would be funny to take over the Twitter hashtag #FTBullies and use it to mock […]

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